At theCentre

Confederation Centre of the Arts Sets Summer Season

education, and heritage programs,” he says. “We look at the past, present, and future, and focus on reconciliation. We talk about identities in Canada.” Noting The Charlottetown Festival is Atlantic Canada’s largest theatre festival, he loves the venues, including the 1,100-seat Sobey Family Theatre, the 180-capacity cabaret style theatre The Mack, and the Outdoor Amphitheatre for family shows.

co-written by singer-songwriter Johnny Reid, and Matt Murray and loosely based on Reid’s Granny.”

Coming to The Mack are The Songs of Johnny & June (based on Johnny Cash and June Carter), and a revue show about female empowerment titled “I’m Every Woman.” TheMi’Kmaq Stories Of Rabbit & His Friends and the Munchables will be at the Outdoor Amphitheatre.

Between historic art gallery exhibitions, incredible live shows, guided walking tours, and summer workshops, the Centre runs the gamut of activities for those who grace its doors.

Andrew Sprague has been the Director of Marketing & Communications since August 2019, but he didn’t get to work his first Festival until last year due to COVID-19. Now fully back on their feet, the Centre is full of fanciful, incredible programming. Among the pillars of the organization is the Charlottetown Festival, which runs June 14-September 23, 2023.

“This is a Centre for convening and having conversations around the Canadian confederation through the arts. We do performing arts, visual arts,

“We have two new shows in the Sobey Family Theatre, The Play That Goes Wrong, and MAGGIE The Play That Goes Wrong is from Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. It was developed in London’s in the early 2000s. It’s such a funny show and has a few local cast members like wellknown funny man Graham Putnam. It’s a comedy, not a musical. People are used to musicals here, but this one is slapstick and timing based. Everything goes wrong in this hilarious show, and it’s so impressive,” he says.

“There is also MAGGIE, the story of a Scottish single mother raising three boys after the death of her husband. It’s set in post-war Scotland. It’s so heartfelt, and the music is fantastic. It’s

There are heritage walking tours, arts education programs in the winter, camps in the summer, an annual Symons Medal Presentation and Lecture, and so much more at the Centre. But one of the crowning pieces is Confederation Centre Art Gallery.

Curator Pan Wendt sees a busy, jubilant, and informative time ahead for the Gallery as it enters an ambitious period with breathtaking exhibits.

To begin, there’s Conversation Pieces on view in the Frederic S. and Ogden Martin Concourse Gallery.

“We have six glass cases out there, and we get lots of viewership and thoroughfare. It’s a modest show, and the area is for mixed use, but these “Conversation Pieces” are wonderful to have,” says Wendt.

However, it’s the “blockbuster” exhibition that’s come out of the relationship the Gallery has with the Sobey family that excites Wendt most.

Generations: The Sobey Family and Canadian Art exhibition includes some of the most cherished names in Canadian art. It has giants of the medium, from Cornelius Krieghoff to early modern Quebec painter Jean Paul Lemieux to the Group of Seven represented by Franklin Carmichael, A.Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Frederick Varley, Arthur Lismer and A.J. Casson. There are just some amazing names from Canadian art history,” says Wendt.

“The Sobey family also collects contemporary art with a focus on Indigenous artists including Kent Monkman and Ursula Johnson, and it’s all encapsulated by the exhibition.” By its end, the exhibition will hit five venues in two years including St. John’s, Edmonton, and Halifax.

Its first stop was at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario.

The Gallery also features Human Capital, a show that complements the Sobey family’s collection. “Generations is a more familiar view of Canadian art history, bolstered by the Sobey family’s more recent focus on collecting contemporary Indigenous art. Human Capital, which comes to us from the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, and is curated by Tak Pham, looks at contemporary Canada, as well as its future, through an alternative lens. The art in the show, which features many of the country’s most promising young artists, deals with our immigration policies and changing demographics,” says Wendt.

Closing out the summer for the Gallery will be a partnership event called Art In The Open on August 26, 2023. “It brings outdoor art and contemporary works into public and outdoor spaces across Charlottetown. This is a big collaboration and will be a memorable festival,” Wendt says.

Director of Marketing & Communications Sprague says they’ve worked very hard to put together an incredible season, and their work is year-round. “It’s going to be a busy summer, but we work 365 days a year to offer the best arts programming we can. There’s no downtime. We constantly try to curate different types of performance. We do education, dance, performing and visual arts,” he says. “We want this place to be bursting at the seams. We’re already impressed by the number of people coming through, and there’s been a lot of interest. There are few forms of energy like a theatre lobby before a performance. This is the realization of our hard work, and it’s going to be an amazing experience.”

Confederation Centre of the Arts 145 Richmond Street, Charlottetown 902.628.1864 info@confederationcentre.com

July 20

August 10

August 17

THE KINGS PLAYHOUSE CABARET FEATURES A DELIGHTFUL MIX OF MUSIC, COMEDY, SPOKEN WORD, DANCE, DRAG AND MORE! EACH SHOW HAS A DIFFERENT LINE-UP.

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Each ticket includes one free alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage info@kingsplayhouse.com www.kingsplayhouse.com

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